Category Archives: IPPF

Internationally, birth control became relevant in the 1930’s, around the same time it did in the United States. However, the movement did not become prominent until after World War Two. This response was triggered in part to the unexpected post war baby boom, and concerns arose about the effects of this continued population trend. The very first post war sex conference was held in Stockholm, Sweden in 1946. There were eight countries present at this conference, and all reported growing awareness regarding the importance of birth control. However it was not until the 1950’s that birth control really gained momentum, following the increasing concern about the rapidly growing global population. Throughout this decade, numerous conferences were held to address the issues and potential solutions dealing with overpopulation,

The third international birth control conference took place in 1952 in Bombay, India. Here physicians, scientists and demographers from the United States, and countries throughout Europe and Asia met to delve into the factors behind the growing human population. Their hopes were to begin research on human reproduction and encourage the establishment of national planned parenthood birth control organizations. This conference especially significant in that it was the first of its kind to be held in the far east. The International Planned Parenthood Federation was established at this conference, and it was the first global birth control organization. Unlike other branches of Planned Parenthood, the International Planned Parenthood Organization was not mainly focused on women’s rights, but instead it was focused on social and economic pressures that were arising from such a massively growing female population. The organization’s initial membership included Great Britain, India, Sweden, the Netherlands, the United States, Hong Kong, Singapore and West Germany. Much of the fourth international birth control conference held in 1953, again in Sweden, was focused on the logistics involved with the International Planned Parenthood Federation. Leadership roles were assigned, with Margaret Sanger being elected as the first president. The goals of the organization were also created, which was to allow for the complete acceptance of the planned parenthood organization, along with the development of programs focused on service research and education.

India, especially, was a country focused on birth control and family planning. By the 1950’s India was already overpopulated, and dealing with the social and economic effects. When the Indian government created their first five year plan, they included within it a family planning program, which was a huge event for the movement. The aim of this program was to provide services related to family planning and to conduct research on effective measure of fertility control.

By 1954, there was so much concern surrounding the growing international population that the United Nations hosted their first World Population Conference in Rome. The objective of this conference was to compile data regarding population trends. This conference clearly defined the severity of the population issue, and the use of population control and family planning became more effective than using maternal health as an explanation for the necessity of birth control. Notably, birth control began to be administered to the peasant populations in India, Pakistan and Ceylon in the same year. This action described that the effects of a quickly growing population were being felt.

While birth control was gaining more acceptance in some parts of Asia and Europe in the beginning of the 1950’s, it was not until 1955 that Latin America hosted an international birth control conference. The International Planned Parenthood Federation held their pioneer conference in San Juan Puerto Rico. Another major conference was held later in 1955 in Tokyo, with representatives from over twenty countries. Again this conference focused mostly on world population trends and methods of controlling a growing population.

The 1950’s brought a new importance to the birth control movement on a global scale. At a time when the human population was growing at an estimated rate of 90,000 people a day, birth control became recognized as a method to slow the population growth that could potentially lead to serious conflict over resources. This post war population growth shifted from a focus just on women’s issues, to the broader concerns of slowing the growth of the world population. Specifically, the International Planned Parenthood Federation was founded to address these arising global issues. The involvement of government and the United Nations was one of the major advantages of this approach. The global population crisis proved the necessity of family planning and birth control, as it seemed as though a population that continued to grow as quickly would lead to serious tensions over access to resources.

My interest in the Margaret Sanger project began after writing a paper for my History of Biotechnology class. I decided to write my unit paper on how the advent of the birth control pill led to the challenge of who was in control of reproduction.

Where would I look?

This is where that Google search box in the upper right-hand corner of my computer came in handy. I searched ‘Margaret Sanger’ and the first site to come up was the Margaret Sanger Papers Project.

This initial inspiration led me to conduct research on the birth control movement in England. While doing research at the British Library and the Wellcome Library, I came across several pamphlets and books written by a Helena Rosa Wright. As my previous exposure to the history of birth control had mainly focused on the movement in the US, I didn’t recognize the importance of this name. Eventually, my research would revolve around the ideals of Wright.

Now as I sit here working at the Margaret Sanger Papers project I wonder, did these two women ever meet?

Fortunately, the collections at the Project responded to my question: yes, they did meet and on several occasions.

I wanted to know more, so I asked a more difficult question: How did these two birth control advocates interact?

This question would be much more difficult to answer. I’ve spent the majority of my day looking over reports from IPPF conferences that they both attended, research reports done by colleagues and the correspondence between the two women in order to lace together their relationship.

Firstly though, I believe some background information on Wright is necessary.

Photo of Helena Wright, date taken unknown (Patricia St. Ledger).

In 1915, Helena Rosa Wright (née Lowenfeld) graduated as a doctor from the London Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine for Women. Not long afterwards, she began her training in gynecology. During the 1920’s Wright spent time as a missionary associate professor of gynecology in China with her husband, Peter Wright. After returning to London, she worked at the Women’s Welfare Center in Telford Road where she encouraged the center to focus on contraceptive services and education. She began to speak at conferences concerning the effects of sex and contraceptive education. Eventually, those who were voluntarily partaking in promoting sex and contraceptive education, along with Wright, formed the National Birth Control Association. Wright was one of the individuals responsible for the formation of the International Committee on Planned Parenthood (would become the International Planned Parenthood Federation). In 1951, Wright would be elected as treasurer of the IPPF.

Alright, there are some basic details. Now to get into what might be some drama.

Wright first met Sanger at a conference on International Birth Control in Zurich. From the research that I have examined, Wright admired Sanger and her work.[1] Sanger, in a letter to Clinton Chance, praises Wright’s work on sex and contraceptive education.[2]

Okay, that seems like a good start. This also seems like a good place to discuss what the two activists had in common.

The simplest way to look at it is that both women wanted access for women to contraceptives. Both women understood that the access to contraceptives would improve women’s health.

Helena Wright lecturing to midwives in Warsaw & using her model of the female sex organs, 1957 (photographer unknown).

Furthermore, both Wright and Sanger advocated for greater understanding of sexual expression. Sanger would publish Woman and the New Race and Wright would publish Sex and Society. In both publications, the women discussed the necessity of individuals to understand and develop their sexual expression separate of its role in parenthood. Wright and Sanger also discuss how the conception of sex must be recreated. In both works, the dissociation of sex from pregnancy will lead to a new “social code” according to Wright or a new “sex morality” as stated by Sanger. [3][4]

Both advocates used similar terminology to describe the present conception of sex. Sanger described that society associated sex with being unclean and Wright explained that sexual pleasure had, for too long, been connected with guilt and was a dirty act to be practiced.[5][6]

So what would fundamentally change about the current conception of with the development of the new “social code/sex morality”?

Basically, sex would be separated from reproduction. Sanger described this as giving women the opportunity to “know themselves” and to “develop her love nature separate from and independent of her maternal nature.”[7]

For Wright and Sanger, the access to and knowledge of birth control were necessary to make these social changes. In Woman and the New Race (1920), Sanger acknowledged this access to knowledge:

To achieve this [new sex morality] she must have a knowledge of birth control.

One would think that Sanger and Wright would get on well. But they didn’t. They ended up on different sides of some of the early ideological battles within the IPPF over its mission and makeup.

According to the biography, Freedom to Choose: The Life and Work of Dr. Helena Wright, Pioneer of Contraception, Evan’s describes Wright as an advocate of sex education. who was “less interested in controlling populations than in liberating women.”[8]

Using this statement, we can more clearly juxtapose Wright and Sanger.

The IPPF was a collaboration between birth control groups that had very different ideas about what needed doing. Most of the British contingent focused on opening birth control clinics, while many Americans were driven more towards arguments about overpopulation and were interested in contraceptive research. The Dutch and the Scandinavians saw birth control as one part of a larger sex education movement. With limited resources, the IPPF had to decide what to do first. Intent on getting a functioning IPPF started, Sanger had little patience for the broader sex education and sex reform ideas of members like Wright and the Scandinavians.

The IPPF Medical Handbook had earlier described the uncontrolled population growth as the problem confronting the world “by the teeming millions of uneducated people to whom the conventional methods of contraception are beyond contraception.”

Here we can see that others like Margaret Sanger who held Neo-Malthusian views, believed contraceptive education and access to birth control were necessary to control population growth.

On the other hand, there were those, like Wright, who felt that population control was “one of the most dangerous and self-defeating ways of expressing our aims and intentions. Diminution of population numbers might be a result, not an aim.”

During the 1950s, the IPPF was struggling to gain government support. The IPPF had applied for membership as a consultative organization in the United Nations Economic and Social Council for work on population control and family planning. The opportunity, which did not succeed, pushed the IPPF’s sex reform goals to the side.

Sanger’s emphasis on population control versus Wright’s emphasis on sex education reform may have been to gain greater financial support from governments and foundations like the Rockefellers since their interest in birth control was mainly for goals of population control.

There also seemed to be personal issues between Sanger and Wright. In the same letter addressed to Clinton Chance, Sanger writes: “her [Wright] judgment is a little dipsy and not at all to be relied upon, as far as personalities are concerned.”[9]

Sanger goes on to criticize Wright’s position as treasurer of the IPPF, stating that her election was not based on her ability with finances but because there had previously been a dishonest person employed in the position. Sanger continued to explain that “we must have a person of more experience.”[10]

Clarence Gamble, date unknown (photographer unknown).

To further stress their relationship, Wright took issue with the Clarence Gamble. In the 1950’s, Gamble attempted to persuade western birth control workers to use cheaper contraceptives. At the 1952 3ICPP conference in Bombay, Wright challenged Gamble, explaining that this method was unacceptable as it injured the user. This, however, did not stop Gamble from continuing his work. [11]

In terms of the Wright-Sanger relationship, Sanger, who had for years received financial support from Gamble, defended his distribution of cheap methods of birth control.

Through all this, it seems that Wright and Sanger maintained a professional relationship. The correspondence between the two advocates remains cordial as it mostly pertains to business regarding the IPPF.

Hmmm…I may just be meddling.

[1] Evans, B. Freedom to Choose: The Life and Work of Dr. Helena Wright, Pioneer of Contraception, London: Bodley Head, 1984, 208.

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